


After the End, One of Those Days

by EdnaV



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 19:03:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18597511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdnaV/pseuds/EdnaV
Summary: After the events of Avengers: Endgame, Bucky Barnes is trying to move on. It's not as easy as it seems. Or maybe it is.





	After the End, One of Those Days

**Author's Note:**

> Still trying to process all that Avengers: Endgame feelings.
> 
> This is my second fanfic, and it's a non-canon m/m, which something I never thought I'd do. And it's not in my first language either. 
> 
> I hope you'll like it. Comments are much, much welcome...

He didn't tell him goodbye.

He had already done it. He had done it in his head while he was falling down that ravine, looking at the train that kept on going. There was that long haze - every time his mind was slipping into Winter Soldier, his last thought was for that man. Then in Wakanda, before going to sleep - he had planned to sleep forever, it turned out to be two years.

He had said goodbye three minutes ago.

Three minutes ago - for him, that is. For Steve it had been a lifetime.

Bucky remembered that story, always the same, always the same words, every time someone mentioned the name “Carter” - and sometimes totally unprompted. _“She had lived a life without me, she was no longer my Peggy.”_

He was no longer _his Steve_. They had already said goodbye, too many times.

Barton had told everyone Romanova's last words: _“you have to let me go.”_ (He always declined Natasha's name in his head; apparently Russian is hard to learn but harder to forget.) While everybody was trying to make Barton feel a little less guilty, Bucky was thinking how everyone seemed to overlook Natasha's sheer intelligence. Sure, she hid it well - a spy through and through. But those three words - _“let me go.”_ Those were the wisest thing he had heard in the past days.

That, and (as much as it pained him to admit it) Stark's self-eulogy: _“_ _Part of the journey is the end._ _”_

So, the end. He knew it. He was still working on accepting it. On letting go.

He was glad for the ones who were doing well. 

Wakanda's Royal Family was always nice to him. He had his house there, though he hadn't gone back yet. Something was telling him not to, though he couldn't put his finger on what it was.

(He had served in the Army of two Republics, and found a haven in a monarchy. So, it was not the first time his world had changed. He tries to keep that in mind.)

Wilson was trying to hide his pride of being Steve's successor - and failing miserably, but he was such a nice person that it wasn't hard to forgive him. Both him and Rhodes had the Army, and the comradeship that goes with it, so strong that two years fighting each other had all but disappeared.

Same with Fury and Danvers: they had been comrades-in-arms of sort - he didn't know the whole story, he hadn't asked. They had exchanged a few words, she had disappeared in space, he had disappeared somewhere on earth.

(Maybe he could have done something using his military training. He was a good sniper, after all. But it was too close to what he had had with Steve, even for those few precious months. Months of war, that is of cold and dirt and lack of sleep, but still: months with Steve in his life. No, he couldn't even bear the thought of wearing a uniform.)

 _Danver had disappeared in space._ He was surprised of how little that thought shocked him. He remembered that movie - he must had been ten? nine? Everyone was talking about it, he had put away the money for a month to go to the theater. The robot-woman, the city of the future; it seemed like a miracle. It was one of his first memories of Steve: dragging the poor scrawny new kid in the neighborhood to see the future. They had ended up living in the future, fighting alongside a robot-woman, people from space, even a god. Steve and that Quill always pointed out that Thor was actually an alien. Bucky had lost his faith in God around his third brainwash, then he had been too busy for that sort of problems, so he used to just nod.

(No, space was too big a leap. Sometimes he was still struggling with how much Earth had changed in a century, figuring aliens was too much. Though he had seen a bit of himself in that Thor, who wasn't any longer smashing himself into pieces but trying to rebuild himself. Maybe aliens and space were not so far away, after all. Anyway, that spaceship had left.)

So, Earth. Where everyone is actually starting to let go. Strange and Wong have their mission to guard the Sanctum - though somethimes it looks like their actual mission is to save the deli round the corner from becoming a Starbucks (Wong is right, Mr. Khan's tuna sandwiches are very good: it's a more than decent mission). Barton, Lang and even Ms. Potts have the most compelling reason: their children are growing up. That nice kid from Queens (Queens, not Brooklyn, _what a shame_ ) has his friends, a field trip coming up.

(Maybe he could take a holiday. Not Europe, of course: it would bring back the memories of the war, once again. Not Russia, for God's sake. New Zealand? It seems like a nice place. Quiet. Except for the earthquakes, of course.)

A holiday, good idea. He could start looking up the flights and the hotels on his phone, if the battery weren't down to 5%. At least he's in the Village - he can go to the deli and have one of those tuna sandwiches too. He hopes there's a free table. 

He opens the door, looks inside - no free table. It's _one of those days_. He's lived a century, he's met people from different planets, and Bucky has come to believe that it's the only constant in the universe: everyone has _one of those days_ , sometimes, somewhere.

He's about to leave, but Mr. Khan's deli-shop-owner-enticing-a-long-term-clientele reflexes are almost superhuman. “Hey, Mr. Barnes, come in!” - and then - “Jack, you don't mind sharing your table, right?”

Three minutes later is eating his sandwich and hoping that perfect stranger doesn't notice his arm, or at least doesn't recognise him. _Forget about the phone,_ _I_ _'ll charge it at home._ The socket is occupied by the perfect stranger anyway.

Four minutes later he's certain the perfect stranger has recognised him. He's on his phone. Bucky prays to God, any God, that there isn't a “Sharing a table with #WinterSoldier at @kahnsfinestdeli!!!” tweet involved. He tries to look elsewhere.

“Do you need to charge up your phone?”  
“It's fine.”  
“Mine's ok. You can use my plug. I'm not going anywhere while it's pouring like that.”  
“Oh, the rain. I hadn't even noticed.”  
“One of _those days_ , eh?”  
“One of _those days_.”  
“At least charge up your phone.”

Bucky looks up. The perfect stranger is smiling. There's something strange; he cannot exactly put his finger on it. Then he realises: the stranger isn't looking neither at his arm nor at his face. It's as if he had recognised Bucky Barnes, Captain America's Old Friend, Hero of the Battle against Thanos, filed the information somewhere in his mind, and moved past it. The perfect stranger is looking Bucky in the eyes.

Bucky plugs in his phone.

Bucky thinks that the perfect stranger is really handsome.

He thinks he used to be good at that sort of stuff, eighty years ago. Maybe he still is.

“Going somewhere in particular when it's stopped raining?” - he asks.

**Author's Note:**

> \- I think that Bucky deserves someone who loves him back without All That Drama. In general I think that everyone does...
> 
> \- The movie that Steve and Bucky watch when they're about 10 is Fritz Lang's Metropolis. 
> 
> \- The bit about Natasha's surname is kind-of dedicated to everyone who has to explain how Slavic languages work every time they interact with an English-speaking civil servant.


End file.
